Itâ€™s been an unpleasant few days around here. All weekend long, and for two days later the ominous drone of circling helicopters was heard at our house, as if we were in a war zone. University of California in its majesty was administering the coup de grace to the hapless romantics perched atop the skeleton of the lone redwood which temporarily survived the assault of the Monarch of the West.
Neighbors called wondering if theyâ€™d missed some major catastrophe. The Planet heard from many readers vainly hoping weâ€™d know what was going on and how to stop it.
Friends who lived here during the culture wars of the 1960s say this was nothing. Then it was troops and tear gas. Now the ugly face the University of California presents to the world is just rent-a-cops, chain-saws, chain-link fences and feeling-your-pain flackery. But to mix a couple of metaphors now floating through the zeitgeist, you can put lipstick on a pit bull, but itâ€™s still a pit bull.
Everywhere we went, we heard ...
Originally from: http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2008-09-11/article/31087?headline=UC-Berkeley-Embarrasses-Its-Alumnae-One-More-Time